Placing needle shields onto syringes is a known process. The needle shields are used to protect a needle of the syringe, limit contamination of the needle and prevent flow of the medication in the syringe out of the needle during shipping. Needle shields have been assembled to syringes by hand and in assembly line-type processes. The hand application processes tend to be inconsistent, labor intensive and may result in exposure of the needle if a worker misorients the needle shield relative to the syringe or applies too much pressure in assembling the needle shield to the syringe, thereby exposing patients to contamination risks.
Certain pick and place methods have also been utilized to mount needle shields onto syringes. Many of these methods have resulted in significant rejections of assembled needle shields and syringes because of misorientation of the needle shields relative to the syringes.
Accordingly, it is desirable to design and implement a system and method for mounting a needle shield onto a syringe that limits rejections of misoriented needle shields relative to the syringes, thereby reliably and properly mounting the needle shields onto the syringes in an assembly line environment.